Recently, the distinction between Patriotism and Nationalism was brought to the fore by Shashi Tharoor.
Patriotism, in his formulation, is instinctive and affectionate - like a child's natural love for a mother, notwithstanding her flaws and all.
Nationalism, by contrast, is tied to the nation's institutions and principles: the Constitution, the flag, democracy, secularism, and social justice. Up to this point, his argument is both elegant and persuasive.
But Tharoor does not stop there.
He further splits nationalism into two forms: civic nationalism, which he supports, and what he describes as majoritarian nationalism, which he opposes.
In his telling, the latter is exclusionary, anchored in ethno-religious identity, and increasingly used to redefine Indian politics in narrow terms.
That critique has been picked up by the young and the self appointed progressive liberals of India.
It may sound appealing to many, especially the Gen Z and the uninitiated adult, but it rests on assumptions that deserve a far more serious challenge.
For one, it is easy to romanticise the past when one's political memory is selective.
The argument seems to suggest that civic nationalism belonged to an earlier era, one in which the Congress led the republic with greater inclusiveness and restraint.
Yet that claim does not survive close scrutiny. India's political and social landscape was never as neat or morally uncomplicated as it sounds.
The Congress era, for all its rhetoric, also produced entrenched inequities, a national emergency, selective secularism, a near national bankruptcy, and a deeply compromised approach to nation-building.
India was among the first to gain independence, yet countries that became independent years later raced ahead, while most of India’s own citizens were left without even the most basic amenities- roads, water, cooking gas, electricity, toilets, bank accounts, and insurance.
To invoke that period as a golden age of civic nationalism is not analysis; it is nostalgia.
More importantly, the political-liberal's critique overlooks a basic truth about modern India: nationalism today is not merely an abstract ideological choice. It is shaped by history, memory, and experience. India was not born into freedom in a vacuum. The country endured centuries of invasion, colonial exploitation, cultural dislocation, and economic extraction.
Let us not forget, the East India Company did not arrive as an army of conquest, but it ended as one of the most devastating instruments of dispossession in modern history.
Over time, foreign rule stripped India of prosperity, dignity, and self-confidence.
A nationalism that emerges from that experience cannot be reduced to xenophobia or identity politics. It is also a defensive instinct - a way of protecting sovereignty, culture, and national assets from external and internal erosion.
That is why contemporary nationalism in India is simply not hostility to outsiders at all.
It is about vigilance.
In a globalised world, vested interest and influence does not always come from armies; it often arrives through benign appearing capital, media, social media, agencies, trade, ideology, NGOs, and other soft power methods.
The new pressure points are different, but they are no less real.
Any serious nationalism must recognise this. It must welcome trade, exchange, and engagement, while refusing to become a passive recipient of one-sided influence.
That is not paranoia. It is prudence.
The later-born and pseudo-liberals also miss another historical continuity: the mindset of divide and manage, inherited from colonial governance later sustained the post-independence governments.
The British were masters of partitioning society, weakening indigenous confidence, and preventing the formation of a truly self-assured people.
Yet many of those fractures were not healed after independence; they were institutionalised and inserted into memory through whitewashed history books.
Instead of building a cohesive civic nation on a level playing field, India often drifted into identity-based patronage, vote-bank politics, and symbolic secularism.
That weakened the very social fabric and trust that civic nationalism requires.
One central weakness of the political-liberals is that they measure nationalism by the standards of elite urban liberal theory while ignoring the lived experience of ordinary Indians.
For decades, Indians were told that nationalism was a suspicion, that cultural pride was hubris, and that the state should not be asserting itself.
The bottom-line outcome - the nation remained poor, dependent, and underconfident for over 60 years after independence.
When a political movement finally emerged that insisted on self-respect, cultural continuity, and national interest, critics dismissed it as majoritarian.
But that is precisely the point of the current shift: the people are no longer content to outsource their national identity to inherited elites and their preferred vocabulary.
The Modi era matters for a reason!
Whether one agrees with Modi's every policy or not, it has undeniably altered the lens of national self-perception. The vocabulary emphasising self-confidence, institutional delivery, strategic autonomy, aggressive foreign policy, and cultural pride has resonated with a large section of the public.
That resonance is not accidental.
It reflects a deeper desire for authenticity - for a civilisation as ancient and a nation as large, India does not merely perform virtue but demonstrates both strength and purpose.
A few may call this majoritarian nationalism. Many others see it as a long-overdue reclamation of national agency.
A further flaw of the Instagram-generation and coloniality-driven liberals is the assumption that India must imitate Western models of civic nationalism to be modern. But the West's own engine is now sputtering and grappling with the limits of its own assumptions.
Europe and North America are wrestling with migration, integration, identity conflict, law & order, and the tension between openness and self-preservation.
Even societies that once celebrated universalism without qualification are now reconsidering the practical limits of that idea.
India, with its own economic challenges, demographic mix, historical experiences, and social complexity, cannot afford imported ideologies and slogans detached from local ground realities.
This becomes especially important in questions of immigration, citizenship, voting, and demographic balance.
A country that is developing, vulnerable, and so diverse cannot treat all inflows or claims of belonging in the same way.
It must make choices rooted in cultural affinity, economic capacity, and national interest.
That is not discrimination in the crude sense; it is smart statecraft.
A government has a duty to protect its own people and cultural identity first, while still remaining humane.
Not offering any special entitlement to the large community minorities is not inhumane, but common sense. The challenge is to balance compassion with prudence.
India's current nationalism, at its best, attempts to do exactly that.
Ultimately, what India needs is not sermonizing from the liberal comfort of imported ideas, or through strawman arguments, or idealism-based protests out of college campuses, or street justice, especially when even a powerful country like America is turning culturally inward and nationalistic, but an honest assessment of where the country stands, what our own history shows, what is visible across geographies, and where it intends to be in the future.
That is the real debate the Gen Z should engage in.
In the final reckoning, India does not need a nostalgia for elite consensus, nor any borrowed ideas, nor idealism unfounded anywhere in the world.
It needs a nationalism that is alert, agile, pragmatic, and self-respecting.
Nationalism cannot be reduced to fear, nor can it be reduced to abstraction. It must be rooted in civilizational confidence, institutional strength, and a realistic understanding of global pressures. It must be seen as a positive emotion that protects the nation without shrinking its horizon of influence. It needs citizens who love the country not only in sentiment, but in substance.
And, finally, it needs public intellectuals who can recognise that the world has changed - and that India, too, has transformed.
Bolo Bharat Mata Ki .... Jai Okay Please! 🙏🏽🇮🇳
